E61 
.M88 

Copy 2 



-4. A" ' 






\ >oVo* J* c o a?' 

^ AV * a 




" * © ; © 9 ^ 



^9" 



6* *c 






.0^ oOJL^.^ 





_>* °^ oVJIak* at ^ 

\> o « a . <6 ~V 




i •©lira* ^ *vJ1\f* <v ^ • SliSJ* oVJO^ 



^ 0^ A 





l V * * • o 





^..•^X o«*.^% 






o <0 






1898 

/-A 



WAS MIDDLE AMERICA 



PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 



BY 

Prof. EDWAKD S. MOESE 



REPRINTED FROM APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
FOR NOVEMBER, 1898 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



COPYRIGHT OFFICE. 



No registration of title of this book 
as a preliminary to copyright protec- 
tion has been found. 



Forwarded to Order Division 

(Date) 



(Apr. 5, 1901—5,000.) 



WAS MIDDLE AMEEICA 
PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 

BY 

Prof. EDWAED S. MOESE 



REPRINTED FROM APPLET ONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
FOR NOVEMBER, 1898 




D. 



NEW YORK 
APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1898 



Copyright 
lm»erf«ct 
Claim. 

12Ag'0l 

Copyright, 1898, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 




WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA ? 



By Prof. EDWARD S. MOESE. 

THE controversies over the question of the origin of Central 
American culture are to be again awakened by the exploration 
organized under the direction of the American Museum of Natural 
History through the liberality of its president, Morris K. Jesup, Esq. 
The plans embrace an ethnographic survey of the races between the 
Columbia and Amoor Rivers. Many similarities in customs, folk- 
lore, etc., will doubtless be found among these northern races. How 
far traces of an ancient avenue will be established through which 
came the unique cult of middle America, and for which in a way 
the surveys have been instituted, remains to be seen. The ques- 
tion is one of perennial interest, and all honor to the scientific spirit 
•of Mr. Jesup, whose munificence has provided the means for this 
work. 

It may be of interest to remind those who have only a vague 
idea of the contention that there are many earnest scholars who' 
insist that the wonderful architectural remains in Mexico, Yucatan, 
and other regions of the west coast are due to Asiatic contact in 
the past. As proofs of this contact are cited similarities as seen in 
the monuments, the facial characteristics of certain tribes, ancient 
customs, astronomical ideas, serpent worship, certain games, etc. 
Particularly is it believed by the scholars that the " land of 
Fusang " mentioned in early Chinese historical records is no other 
than Mexico or some contiguous country. 

Space will not permit even the briefest mention of the evidences 
which have led to these conclusions, and the reader is referred to a 
remarkably condensed history of the whole question embodied in a 
volume by Mr. Edward P. Yining entitled An Inglorious Columbus. 
Under this unfortunate title one may find the most painstaking col- 
location of the many memoirs written upon this subject, with the 
Chinese account of the land of Fusang in Chinese characters, and 
appended thereto the various translations of the document by De 
Guines, Williams, Julien, and other eminent sinologues. 

To the French Orientalist, M. de Guines, we are indebted for 
our first knowledge of certain ancient records of the Chinese, which 
briefly record the visit of Chinese Buddhist monks to the land 



4 WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 



of Fusang in the year 458 of our era, and the return of a single 
Buddhist monk from this land in 499. De Guines's memoir appeared 
in 1761, and for forty years but little attention was drawn to it. 
Humboldt says that, according to the learned researches of Father 
Gaubil, it appears doubtful whether the Chinese ever visited the' 
western coast of America at the time stated by De Guines. In 1831, 
Klaproth, the eminent German Orientalist, combated the idea that 
Fusang was Mexico, and insisted that it was Japan. In 1844 the 
Chevalier de Paravey argued that Fusang should be looked for in 
America. Prof. Karl Friedrich Neumann also defended this idea. 
In magazine articles in 1850-1862, and finally in book form in 1875, 
Mr. C. G. Leland supported with great ingenuity, the idea of Chinese 
contact based on the Fusang account. In 1862 M. Jose Perez also 
defended the idea. In 1865 M. Gustave d'Eichthal published his 
memoir on the Buddhistic origin of American civilization, and in 
the same year M. Vivien de Saint-Martin combated the theory, and 
since that time many others have written upon the subject in favor or 
in opposition to the idea of Asiatic contact. 

These hasty citations are only a few of the many that I have- 
drawn from Mr. Vining's encyclopedic compilation. 

It is extraordinary what a keen fascination the obscure paths of 
regions beyond history and usually beyond verification have to many 
minds, and the fascination is as justifiable as the desire to explore 
unknown regions of the earth. In the one case, however, we have 
a tangled mass of legendary tales coming down from a time when 
dragons were supposed to exist, when trees were miles in height,, 
when people lived to a thousand years, when every unit of measure- 
ment was distorted and every physical truth, as we know it to-day, 
had no recognition, while in the other case we have at least a con- 
tinuity of the same land and sea extending to the unexplored beyond. 
This impulse of the human mind finds an attractive problem in the 
question as to the origin of the American races. Dr. Brinton ha& 
insisted on the unreasonable nature of the inquiry by asking an 
analogous one : " "Whence came the African negroes ? All will reply, 
' From Africa, of course.' ' Originally? ' ' Yes, originally; they 
constitute the African or negro subspecies of man.' " By bringing 
together isolated features which have resemblances in common, the 
American Indian has been traced to nearly every known stock. Mr. 
Henry W. Henshaw, in an admirable address entitled "Who are the- 
American- Indians? says: "If you have special bias or predilection 
you have only to choose for yourself. If there be any among you 
who decline to find the ancestors of our Indians among the Jews, 
Phcenicians, Scandinavians, Irish, Welsh, Egyptians, or Tartars,, 
then you still have a choice among the Hindu, Malay, Polynesian^ 



WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 5 



Chinese, or Japanese, or indeed among almost any other of the chil- 
dren of men." Had this address been written a few years later he 
might have added Hittite! 

There are two propositions involved in the controversy as to the 
Asiatic origin of the American race: the one is that America was 
peopled from Asia by invasions or migrations in pre-savage or pre- 
giacial times; the other is that the peculiar civilization of Central 
America was induced by Buddhist monks, who traveled from Asia 
to Mexico and Central America in the fifth century of our era. 
Those who sustain the first thesis are without exception men trained 
in the science of anthropology; those who sustain the second thesis 
are with a few conspicuous exceptions travelers, geographers, sino- 
logues, missionaries, and the like. 

If Asia should ever prove to be the cradle of the human race, or 
of any portion of it which had advanced well beyond the creature 
known as Pithecanthropus erectus, then unquestionably an Asian 
people may be accounted the progenitors of the American Indians. 
Any effort, however, to establish an identity at this stage would 
probably take us far beyond the origin of speech or the ability to 
fabricate an implement. 

The controversy has not raged on this ground, however; the 
numerous volumes and memoirs on the subject have dealt almost 
exclusively with culture contacts or direct invasions from Asia in 
•our era, and more particularly with the siipposed visits of Chinese 
Buddhist monks to Mexico and Central America already alluded to. 
Believing in the unity of the human race, the dispersion of the 
species seems more naturally to have occurred along the northern 
borders of the great continents rather than across the wide ocean. 
From the naturalist's standpoint the avenues have been quite as 
open for the circumpolar distribution of man as they have been 
for the circumpolar distribution of other animals and plants down 
to the minutest land snail and low fungus. The ethnic resemblances 
supposed to exist between the peoples of the two sides of the Pacific 
may be the result of an ancient distribution around the northern 
regions of the globe. Even to-day social relations are said to exist 
between the peoples of the Mackenzie and the Lena delta, and it is 
not improbable that the carrying band of the Ainu in Yeso and a 
similar device depicted on ancient codices and stone monuments in 
Mexico may have had a common origin. Advancing to a time when 
man acquired the art of recording his thoughts, the question of any 
contact between the peoples of the eastern and western shores of the 
Pacific, south of latitude 40°, compels us to examine the avenues 
which have been so potent in the distribution of life in the past — 
namely, the oceanic currents. We are at once led to the great Japan 



6 WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 



current, the Kuro Shiwo, which sweeps up by the coast of Japan 
and spends its force on the northwest coast of America. Records 
show a number of instances of Japanese junks cast ashore on the 
Oregon coast and shores to the north.* 

It must be evidences of Japanese and not Chinese contact that 
we are to look for — tangible evidences, for example, in the form of 
relics, methods of burial, etc. That the Japanese bear resemblances- 
to certain northern people there can be no doubt. Dr. Torell 
brought before the Swedish Anthropological Society, some years ago,, 
the results of a comparative study of Eskimo and Japanese. The 
anatomical and ethnographical resemblances appeared so striking to 
him as to give additional strength to the theory of the settlement of 
America from Asia by way of Bering Strait. That there are cer- 
tain resemblances among individuals of different races we have 
abundant evidences. At a reception in Philadelphia I introduced a 
Japanese commissioner (who had been a Cambridge wrangler) to a 
full-blooded Omaha Indian dressed in our costume, and the com- 
missioner began a conversation with him in Japanese; nor could he 
believe me when I assured him that it was an Indian that he was- 
addressing, and not one of his own countrymen. I was told by an 
attache of the Japanese legation at Washington that after carefully 
scrutinizing the features of a gentleman with whom he was travel- 
ing he ventured to introduce himself as a fellow-countryman, and 
found to his astonishment that the man was a native of the Malay 
Peninsula. That the Malays bear a strong resemblance to the 
Chinese is quite true. Dr. Baelz, of the Medical College of Japan, 
can find no differences between the crania and pelves of the Chinese' 
and Malays. Wallace assures us that even the Malay of Java, when 
dressed as a Chinese, is not to be distinguished from them, and 
Peschel classifies the Malays with the Mongoloid people. In these 
approximate regions one might expect close intermixtures. If re- 
semblances are established between the Japanese and the Eskimo, 
they would probably have arisen from a circumpolar race which has ; 
left its traces on northern peoples the world around. We turn 
naturally to Japan as the region from which a migration might rea- 
sonably have been supposed to take place. Its position on the Asiatic 
coast with a series of larger and smaller stepping-stones — the Kuriles 

* Mr. Charles Walcott Brooks presented to the California Academy of Sciences a report 
of Japanese vessels wrecked on the North Pacific Ocean in which many instances are given.. 
He says: " Every junk found stranded on the coast of North America or on the Hawaiian 
or adjacent islands has, on examination, proved to be Japanese, and no single instance of a 
Chinese vessel has ever been reported, nor is any believed to have existed. . . . There also 
exists an ocean stream of cold water emerging from the Arctic Ocean which sets close in 
along the eastern coast of Asia. This fully accounts for the absence of Chinese junks on 
the Pacific, as vessels disabled off their coast would naturally drift southward. 1 ' 



WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? j 



— to Kamchatka, and thence across the strait to America and sea- 
ward, the broad and powerful Japanese current sweeping by its 
coast and across the Pacific, arrested only by the northwestern coast 
of America. "With these various avenues of approach one might 
certainly expect evidences of contact in past times. A somewhat 
extended study in Japan of its prehistoric and early historic remains 
in the way of shell-heap pottery from the north to the south, much 
of it of an exceedingly curious character; the later stone imple- 
ments, many of them of the most extraordinary types; the bronze 
mirrors, swords, spear points, and the so-called bronze bells ; the wide 
distribution of a curious comma-shaped ornament of stone known 
as the magatama, with a number of varieties, and many other kinds 
of objects, leads me to say that no counterpart or even remote paral- 
lelism has been found in the western hemisphere. Certain rude 
forms of decoration of the northern shell-heap pottery of Japan, 
such as the cord-mark and crenulated fillet, are world-wide in their 
distribution, and a similar wide dispersal is seen of the rude stone im- 
plements and notched and barbed bone and horn. Here, however, 
the similarity ends. The lathe-turned ungiazed mortuary vessels so 
common in ancient graves in Japan and Korea have equally no coun- 
terpart on our western coast. If now we examine the early records 
of Japan in her two famous works — the Kojiki and KThonji, which 
contain rituals, ceremonies, and historical data going back with con- 
siderable accuracy to the third and fourth centuries of our era — we 
shall find many curious details of customs and arts and references 
to objects which have since been exhumed from burial mounds, yet 
we look in vain for a similar cult in Mexico or Central America. 
Turning aside from Japan as an impossible ground in which to trace 
resemblances, we glance at the unique character of the ancient pot- 
tery of Central America, with its representations of natural forms, 
such as fishes, turtles, frogs, shells, etc., its peculiar motives of decora- 
tion in color, and find no counterpart in Asia. The pyramidal rock 
structure and rounded burial mounds are supposed to have their 
counterparts in the East, but the pyramidal form is common in 
various parts of the world, simply because it is the most economical 
and most enduring type of architecture, and facilitates by its form 
the erection of the highest stone structures. The rounding dome 
of an earth mound and the angular side of a rock pyramid are the 
result of material only. 

If we now turn to China as a possible region from which migra- 
tions may have come in the past, we have only to study the historical 
records of that ancient people to realize how hopeless it is to estab- 
lish any relationship. Let one study the Ceremonial Usages of the 
Chinese (1121 b. c. — translated by Gingell), and he will then ap- 



8 WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 



preciate the wonderful advancement of the Chinese at that early 
date — the organized government, the arts, customs, manufactures, 
and the minute observances and regulations concerning every detail 
of life. With these records before him he may search in vain for 
the direct introduction of any art or device described in this old 
Chinese work. A few similarities are certainly found between the 
East and the West, but these arise from the identity in man's mental 
and physical structure. With two legs only, for example, it is found 
difficult to sit on a seat comfortably in more than a few ways. One 
may sit with both legs down, with one leg under, with legs crossed 
a la Turk, or the unconventional way throughout the world with one 
leg over the other at various angles. It would seem with this limited 
number of adjustments that any similarities in the attitude of cer- 
tain stone statues in America and Asia could have but little weight. 
Prof. F. W. Putnam believes that he has established an Asiatic 
origin of certain jade ornaments found in Central America. If this 
conclusion could be sustained, we should then have evidences of con- 
tact with an Asiatic people in the stone age, which in itself was one 
of great antiquity for the Chinese, and one long antedating the origin 
of Buddhism. In the Chinese work above alluded to the whetstone 
is mentioned for sharpening swords, and the craft employed in pol- 
ishing the musical stone. Confucius also. refers to the musical stone 
in his Analects. This is as near as we get to the use of stone eleven 
hundred years before Christ. It is to the merit of Putnam to have 
first called attention to the fact that many of the jade ornaments, 
amulets, etc., of Central America had originally been portions of 
jade celts. The discovery is one of importance, whatever explanation 
may be reached as to the origin of the stone. In Costa Rica these 
celt-derived ornaments have been cut from celts composed of the 
native rock, and it would seem that these old implements handed 
down in the family led to their being preserved in the form of beads, 
amulets, etc., much in the same spirit that animates us to-day in 
making paper-cutters, penholders, and the like from wood of the 
Charter Oak, frigate Constitution, and other venerated relics. 
Among other evidences of contact the existence of the Chinese calen- 
dar in Mexico is cited. Dr. Brinton shows, however, that the Mexi- 
can calendar is an indigenous production, and has no relation to the 
calendar of the Chinese. In a similar way the Mexican game of 
patolli is correlated with the East Indian game of parcliesi by Dr. 
E. B. Tylor. Dr. Stewart Culin, who has made a profound study 
of the games of the world, and Mr. Frank Hamilton Gushing, the 
distinguished student of the ethnology of southern North America, 
are both convinced that this game had an independent origin in 
various parts of the world. Mexican divisions of time marked by 



WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 9 



'five colors are recognized as being allied to a similar device in China. 
The application of colors to the meaning of certain ideographs is 
common in other parts of the world as well. It is important to 
remark that the colors named include nearly the whole category as 
selected by barbarous people, and in the use of colors in this way 
it would be difficult to avoid similarities. 

The evidences of contact in early times must be settled by the 
•comparison of early relics of the two shores of the Pacific. Resem- 
blances there are, and none will dispute them, but that they are for- 
tuitous and have no value in the discussion is unquestionable. As 
illustrations of these fortuitous resemblances may be cited a tazza 
from the United States of Colombia having a high support with tri- 
angular perforations identical in form with that of a similar object 
found among the mortuary vessels of Korea, and Greece as well. A 
curious, three-lobed knob of a pot rim, so common in the shell 
mounds of Omori, Japan, has its exact counterpart in the shell 
mounds of the upper Amazon. In the Omori pottery a peculiar cur- 
tain-shaped decoration on a special form of jar has its exact parallel in 
the ancient pottery of Porto Pico. These instances might be multi- 
plied, but such coincidences as are often seen in the identity of cer- 
tain words are familiar to all students. The account of the land of 
Fusang appears in the records of the Liang dynasty contained in the 
ISTanshi, or History of the South, written by Li Yen-Shau, who lived 
in the beginning of the seventh century. It purports to have been 
told by a monk who returned from the land of Fusang in 499 of 
our era. This hypothetical region has been believed to be Japan, 
Saghalin, and Mexico. The record is filled with fabulous state- 
ments of impossible animals, trees of impossible dimensions, and is so 
utterly beyond credence in many ways that it should have no weight 
■•as evidence. If it had any foundation in fact, then one might infer 
that some traveler had entered Saghalin from the north, had crossed 
to Yeso and Japan, and found his way back to China. His own 
recollections, supplemented by stories told him by others, would form 
the substance of his account. The record is brief, but any one 
familiar with J apan as Klaproth was is persuaded with him that the 
account refers to Japan and adjacent regions. The twenty thousand 
li the monk is said to have traveled may parallel his mulberry trees 
•several thousand feet high and his silkworms seven feet long. In a 
more remote Chinese record, as mentioned by Dr. Gustave Schlegel, 
the statement is made that the inhabitants had to dig down ten thou- 
sand feet to obtain blue tenacious clay for roofing tiles ! A number 
of ardent writers convinced that signs of Chinese contact are seen in 
the relics of middle America have seized upon this account of Fusang 
in support of this belief. These convictions have arisen by finding it 



io WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 



difficult to believe that the ancient civilizations of Mexico and Peru 
could have been indigenous. In seeking for an exterior origin in 
the Fusang account overweight has been credited to every possible 
resemblance, and all discrepancies have been ignored. 

The fabulous account of the land of Fusang evidently supplied 
documentary evidence, and Mexico was conceived to be the mythical 
Fusang. Mr. Yining goes so far as to declare that " some time in the 
past the nations of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America were 
powerfully affected by the introduction of Asiatic arts, customs, and 
religious belief." To establish the details in the Chinese account 
the entire western hemisphere is laid under contribution: now it 
is the buffalo of North America, then the llama of Peru, the reindeer 
of the arctic, or some native word. These writers do not hesitate to- 
bring to life animals that became extinct in the upper Tertiaries, and 
to account for the absence of others by supposing them to have 
become extinct. Literal statements of horses dragging wheeled ve- 
hicles are interpreted as an allusion in Buddhist cult which refers by 
metaphor to attributes and not to actual objects. As an illustration 
of the wild way in which some of these resemblances are established, 
Mr. Yining quotes the account of M. Jose Perez (Revue Orientate et 
Americaine, vol. viii). Perez reminds us that the inhabitants of the 
New "World gave Old World names to places in the new continent, 
citing New York, New Orleans, and New Brunswick as examples, and 
then says that at some remote epoch the Asiatics had given to the 
cities of the New World the same names as the cities of their mother 
country; so the name of the famous Japanese city Ohosaka (Osaka), 
to the west of the Pacific, became Oaxaca in Mexico on the eastern 
side. Now it is well known that the ancient name of Osaka was 
Namihawa; this became corrupted into Naniwa, and not till 1492 
does the name Osaka appear. Rev. J. Summers gives a full ac- 
count of these successive names with their meanings (Transac- 
tions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. vii, part iv). The real 
question to be answered is not what might have been accomplished 
by ancient explorers from Asia, but what was accomplished. It 
is shown that Chinese Buddhist priests went to India in the years 
388, 399, 629, and so on, and the question is asked, Why may 
they not have reached Mexico on the east? Migration on paral- 
lels of latitude with no intervening ocean is one matter; to go from 
latitude 30° on one side of the Pacific almost to the Arctic Ocean, 
and down on the other side nearly to the equator, is quite another 
exploit. It is assumed that five priests had gone to Mexico in 468 
a. d., and there ingrafted Buddhistic cult on the races with whom 
they came in contact. It is simply beyond reason to believe that the 
introduction of Buddhism into Mexico antedated by half a century 



WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 11 



its introduction into Japan. Communication between Korea and 
Japan has been from the earliest times one without effort or peril: 
in the one case a trip of a day or more, in the other case a journey 
of unnumbered thousands of miles through perilous seas, across 
stormy fiords and raging waters, including arctic and tropical 
climates and contact with multitudinous savage hordes. Those who 
hold that Mexico and Central America were powerfully affected by 
Asiatic contact must be called upon to explain the absence of cer- 
tain Asiatic arts and customs which would have been introduced by 
any contact of sufficient magnitude to leave its impress so strongly 
in other directions. A savage people takes but little from a civilized 
people save its diseases, gunpowder, and rum. The contact of bar- 
barous with civilized people results in an interchange of many useful 
objects and ideas, but these introductions must be through repeated 
invasions and by considerable numbers. Peschel, while believing in 
the Asiatic origin of the American race, would place the time far 
back in the savage state. He repudiates the Fusang idea, and ex- 
presses his belief that " a high state of civilization can not be trans- 
mitted by a few individuals, and that the progress in culture takes 
place in dense populations and by means of a division of labor which 
fits each individual into a highly complex but most effective organi- 
zation," and then insists that " the phenomena of American civili- 
zation originated independently and spontaneously " ; and Keane 
shows how interesting the social, religious, and political institutions 
of America become when " once severed from the fictitious Asiatic 
connection and influences." That the savage derives little or derives 
slowly from contact with a superior race is seen in the fact that he 
still remains savage. Thus the Ainu, a low, savage people, though 
they have been in contact with the Japanese for nearly two thou- 
sand years, have never acquired the more powerful Mongolian arrow 
release, while the Persians, though Aryan, yet early acquired this 
release from their Mongolian neighbors. The Scandinavians, who 
in prehistoric times practiced the primary release, yet later acquired 
the more efficient Mediterranean method. Let us for a moment con- 
sider what would have occurred as a result of an Asiatic contact with 
a people advanced enough to have been powerfully affected in their 
" arts, customs, and religious belief." It seems reasonable to believe 
that traces of a Mongolian release would be found in Central 
America, the more so as a warlike people would eagerly seize upon a 
more powerful method of pulling the bow, yet no trace of a stone or 
metal thumb ring has ever been found in the western hemisphere. 
Ancient Mexican codices, while depicting the archer, reveal no 
trace of the Mongolian method. In the Old World this release crept 
westward as a result of the migration of, or contact with, Asiatic 



12 WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 



tribes, and metal thumb rings are dug up on the Mediterranean lit- 
toral. While the arrow release of China might not have effected a 
lodgment in America, the terra-cotta roofing tile certainly would. 
This important device, according to Schlegel, was probably known 
in China 2200 b. c, in Korea 500 b. c, and in Japan in the early 
years of our era. In the ancient records of Japan reference is made 
to " breaking a hole in the roof tiles of the hall," etc., and green- 
glazed tiles are dug up on the sites of ancient temples in Japan. The 
fragments are not only unmistakable but indestructible. I have 
shown elsewhere * that the primitive roofing tile crept into Europe 
from the East, distributing itself along both shores of the Mediter- 
ranean, and extending north to latitude 44°. Graeber finds its 
earliest use in the temple of Hira in Olympia, 1000 b. c. The ancient 
Greeks had no knowledge of the roofing tile. Among the thousands 
of fragments and multitudinous articles of pottery found by Schlie- 
mann in the ruins of Ilios, not a trace of the roofing tile was dis- 
covered. One is forced to believe that so useful an object, and one 
so easily made, would have been immediately adopted by a people so 
skillful in the making of pottery as the ancient Mexicans. Certainly 
these people and those of contiguous countries were equal to the 
ancient Greeks in the variety of their fictile products. Huge jars, 
whistles, masks, men in armor, curious pots of an infinite variety 
attest to their skill as potters, yet the western hemisphere has not 
revealed a single fragment of a pre-Columbian roofing tile. Yi- 
ning, in his work, cites an observation of the Rev. W. Lobscheid, the 
author of a Chinese grammar. In crossing the Isthmus of Panama 
this writer was much struck with the similarities to China ; " the 
principal edifices on elevated ground and the roofing tiles identical 
to those of China." The roofing tile is indeed identical with that of 
China. It is the form that I have elsewhere defined as the normal 
or Asiatic tile, but it reached America for the first time by way 
of the Mediterranean and Spain, and thence with the Spaniards 
across the Atlantic, where it immediately gained a footing, and 
rapidly spread through South America and along the west coast 
north, as may be seen in the old mission buildings in California. 

In China, Korea, and Japan the sandal has a bifurcated toe cord, 
the base of which, springing from the front of the sandal, passes 
between the first and second toes. It belongs to the Old World 
through its entire extent. It is the only form represented in ancient 
Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greek sculpture. One would have expected 
that with any close contact with Asian people this method of holding 
the sandal to the foot would have been established in Central Amer- 



* On the Older Forms of Terra-Cotta Roofing Tiles. Essex Institute Bulletin, 1882. 



WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 13 



ica, yet one may seek in vain for the evidences of even a sporadic 
introduction of this method. Where representations are given in 
the sculptured stone pottery, or codex, the sandal is represented 
with two cords, one passing between the first and second and the 
other between the third and fourth toes. Dr. Otis T. Mason, who- 
has given us an exhaustive monograph of the foot gear of the worlds 
says that every authority on Mexico and Central America pictures 
the sandal with two cords, and he further says, in a general article 
on the same subject, " An examination of any collection of pottery 
of middle America reveals the fact at once, if the human foot is por- 
trayed, that the single toe string was not anciently known." 

The Thibetans, Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese have used the 
serviceable carrying stick from time immemorial. The nearest ap- 
proach to this method in this country is seen in Guadalajara, where 
a shoulder piece is used to carry jars. The representation of this 
method shows that the pole rests across the back in such a manner 
that the load is steadied by both the right and left hand simultane- 
ously — identical, in fact, with methods in vogue to-day through 
western Europe. We find, however, the northern races, as the Ainu 
and Kamchadels, use the head band in carrying loads, and thi& 
method has been depicted in ancient American sculpture. The car- 
rying stick, so peculiarly Asiatic, according to Dr. Mason, is not met 
with on this continent. 

With the evidences of Asiatic contact supposed to be so strong in 
Central America, one might have imagined that so useful a device as 
the simple chopsticks would have secured a footing. These two 
sticks, held in one hand and known in China as " hasteners or nimble 
lads," are certainly the most useful, the most economical, and the 
most efficient device for their purposes ever invented by man. 
Throughout that vast Asian region, embracing a population of five 
hundred million, the chopstick is used as a substitute for fork, tongs^ 
and certain forms of tweezers. Even fish, omelet, and cake are sepa- 
rated with the chopsticks, and the cook, the street scavenger, and the 
watch repairer use this device in the form of iron, long bamboo, and 
delicate ivory. The bamboo chopstick was known in China 1000 
b. c, and shortly after this date the ivory form was devised. Their 
use is one of great antiquity in Japan, as attested by references to it 
in the ancient records of that country. One may search in vain f or 
the trace of any object in the nature of a chopstick in Central or 
South America. Knitting needles of wood are found in the work 
baskets associated with ancient Peruvian mummies, but the chop- 
stick has not been found. Curious pottery rests for the chopsticks 
are exhumed in Japan, but even this enduring testimony of its early 
use is yet to be revealed in this country. 



i 4 WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 



The plow in all its varieties has existed in China for countless 
centuries. Its ideograph is written in a score of ways. It was early 
introduced into Korea and Japan, and spread westward through the 
Old World to Scandinavia. There it has been found in the peat 
bogs. It is figured on ancient Egyptian monuments, yet it made its 
appearance in the E"ew World only with the advent of the Spaniards. 
This indispensable implement of agriculture when once introduced 
was instantly adopted by the races who came in contact with the 
Spaniards. Even in Peru, with its wonderful agricultural develop- 
ment and irrigating canals, no trace of this device is anciently known, 
and to-day the tribes of Central and South America still follow the 
rude and primitive model first introduced by their conquerors. 

If we study the musical instruments of the New World races 
we find various forms of whistles, flutes, rattles, split bells, and 
drums, but seek in vain for a stringed instrument of any kind. This 
is all the more surprising when we find evidences of the ancient use 
of the bow. If Dr. Tylor is right, we may well imagine that the lute 
of ancient Egypt was evolved from the musical bow with its gourd 
resonator (so common in various parts of Africa), and this in turn 
an outgrowth of the archer's bow, or, what at the moment seems 
quite as probable, the musical bow might have been the primitive 
form from which was evolved the archer's bow on the one hand and 
the lute on the other. Dr. Mason, in a brief study of the musical 
bow, finds it in various forms in Africa and sporadic cases of it in 
this country, and expresses the conviction that stringed musical in- 
struments were not known to any of the aborigines of the western 
hemisphere before Columbus. Dr. Brinton is inclined to dispute 
this conclusion, though I am led to believe that Dr. Mason is right; 
for had this simple musical device been known anciently in this 
country, it would have spread so widely that its pre-Columbian use 
would have been beyond any contention. In Japan evidences of a 
stringed instrument run back to the third or fourth century of our 
era, and in China the kin (five strings) and seih (thirteen strings) 
were known a thousand years before Christ. These were played in 
temples of worship, at religious rites, times of offering, etc. It seems 
incredible that any contact sufficient to affect the religious customs 
of Mexico or Central America could have occurred without the in- 
troduction of a stringed instrument of some kind.* 

In the Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese (1100 b. c), a work 
already referred to, one may find allusions to a number of forms of 

* Since the above was written Dr. Brinton and Mr. Saville have called my attention to 
such evidences as would warrant the belief in the existence of a pre-Columbian stringed 
musical instrument. The devices are, however, of such a nature as to indicate their inde- 
pendent origin. 



WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 15 



wheeled carriages, with directions for their construction. Minute 
•details even are given as to material and dimensions, such as measur- 
ing the spoke holes in the rim with millet seed (reminding one of the 
modern method of ascertaining the cubic contents of crania), all 
indicating the advanced development of wheeled vehicles. If from 
this early date in China up to the fifth century a. d., any people had 
found their way from China to middle America, one wonders why 
the wheel was not introduced. Its absence must be accounted for. 
It was certainly not for lack of good roads or constructive skill. Its 
appearance in this hemisphere was synchronous with the Spanish 
invasion, and when once introduced spread rapidly north and south. 
Like the plow, it still remains to-day the clumsy and primitive 
model of its Spanish prototype. 

The potter's wheel is known to have existed in Asia from the 
•earliest times; the evidence is not only historical, but is attested by 
the occurrence of lathe-turned pottery in ancient graves. "We look 
in vain for a trace of a potter's wheel in America previous to the 
sixteenth century. Mr. Henry C. Mercer regards a potter's device 
used in Yucatan as a potter's w T heel, and believes it to have been pre- 
Columbian. This device, known as the kdbal, consists of a thick 
disk of wood which rests on a slippery board, the potter turning the 
disk with his feet. The primitive workman uses his feet to turn, 
hold, and move objects in many operations. The primitive potter 
has always turned his jar in manipulation rather than move himself 
about it. Resting the vessel on a block and revolving it with his 
feet is certainly the initial step toward the potter's wheel, but so 
simple an expedient must not be regarded as having any relation to 
the true potter's wheel, which originated in regions where other 
kinds of wheels revolving on pivots were known. 

It seems reasonable to believe that had the Chinese, Japanese, 
or Koreans visited the Mexican coast in such numbers as is believed 
they did, we ought certainly to find some influence, some faint strain, 
at least, of the Chinese method of writing in the hitherto unfathom- 
able inscriptions of Maya and Aztec. Until recently it was not 
known whether they were phonetic or ideographic ; indeed, Dr. Brin- 
ton has devised a new word to express their character, which he calls 
ikonomatic. This distinguished philologist of the American lan- 
guages confesses that not even the threshold of investigation in 
the solution of these enigmatical puzzles has been passed. Had the 
Chinese introduced or modified or even influenced in any way the 
method of writing as seen on the rock inscriptions of Central 
America, one familiar with Chinese might have found some clew, as 
was the case in deciphering the ancient writings of Assyria and 
Egypt. Grotefend's work on cuneiform inscriptions and Champol- 



16 WAS MIDDLE AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA? 



lion's interpretation of Egyptian came about by the assumption of 
certain inclosures representing historic characters, which were re- 
vealed in one case by an inference and in another by an accompany- 
ing Greek inscription. If we examine the early Chinese characters 
as shown on ancient coins of the Hea dynasty (1756 to 2142 b. c), 
or the characters on ancient bronze vases of the Shang dynasty 
1113 to 1755 b. c), we find most of them readily deciphered by 
sinologists, and coming down a few centuries later the characters 
are quite like those as written to-day. On some of the many in- 
scribed stone monuments of Central America one might expect fo- 
und some traces of Chinese characters if any intercourse had taken 
place, whereas the Maya glypts are remotely unlike either Chinese 
or Egyptian writing. Some acute students of this subject are inclined 
to believe that these undecipherable characters have been evolved 
from pictographs which were primarily derived from the simple 
picture writing so common among the races of the New World. 

It seems clearly impossible that any intercourse could have taken 
place between Asia and America without an interchange of certain 
social commodities. The " divine weed/' tobacco, has been the com- 
fort of the races of the western hemisphere north and south for un- 
numbered centuries: stone tobacco pipes are exhumed in various 
parts of the continent; cigarettes made of corn husks are found in 
ancient graves and caves; the metatarsals of a deer, doubly per- 
forated, through which to inhale tobacco or its smoke in some form, 
are dug up on the shores of Lake Titicaca. 

The question naturally arises why tobacco was not carried back 
to Asia by some of the returning emigrants, or why tea was not in- 
troduced into this country by those early invaders. A Buddhist 
priest without tea or tobacco would be an anomaly. There are many 
other herbs, food plants, etc., that should not have waited for the 
Spanish invasion on the one hand, or the Dutch and Portuguese 
navigator along the Chinese coast on the other. 

Finally, if evidences of Asiatic contact exist, they should cer- 
tainly be found in those matters most closely connected with man, 
such as his weapons, clothing, sandals, methods of conveyance, pot- 
tery making and devices thereon, musical instruments, and above 
all house structure and modes of burial. More remote perhaps would 
be survivals of language, and if the invaders had a written one, the 
characters, whether phonetic or ideographic, would have been left 
in the enduring rock inscriptions. If now a study of the aborigines 
of the western hemisphere from Hudson Bay to Tierra del Fuego 
fails to reveal even a remote suggestion of resemblance to any of 
these various matters above enumerated, their absence must in some 
way be accounted for by Asiaticists. 



W 10 1 



Appletons* Popular Science Monthly. 



For the last half century scientific methods of 
study have been gradually extending, until they are 
now applied to every branch of human knowledge. 

The great problems of society are making 
urgent demands upon public attention. Science 
furnishes the only means by which they can be 
intelligently studied. 

This magazine gives the results of scientific re- 
search in these and other fields. Its articles are 
from the pens of the most eminent scientists of 
the world. 

It translates the technical language of the 
specialist into plain English suitable for the gen- 
eral reader. 

Among the subjects discussed in its pages are : 
Psychology, Education, The Functions of Govern- 
ment, Municipal Reform, Sumptuary Legislation, 
Relations of Science and Religion, Hygiene, Sani- 
tation, and Domestic Economy, Natural History, 
Geography, Travel, Anthropology, and the phys- 
ical sciences. 

'Prominent among its recent contributors are 
such men as 



ANDREW D. WHITE, 
DAVID A. WELLS, 
APPLET ON MORGAN, 
JAMES SULLY, 
WILLIAM T. LUSK, M. D., 
FREDERICK STARR, 
GARRET P. SERVISS, 
DAVID STARR JORDAN, 



EDWARD ATKINSON, 
HERBERT SPENCER, 
EDWARD S. MORSE, 
T. MITCHELL PRUDDEN, M. D. , 
C. HANFORD HENDERSON, 
CHARLES SEDGWICK MINOT, 
G. T. W. PATRICK. 
M. ALLEN STARR. 



50 cents a number ; #5.00 per annum. 
D. APPLHTON AND COMPANY, Publishers, 

72 Fifth Avenue, New York, U. S. A. 








« . » * A <* - . 



^ A 







» . o - .0' ^ - . , •> 




* ^ VI 

4* ,c •» •».'>! 





<<V c o » c „ ^ 











"V »» . '» * A 



V' o » " 0 » *< 




9 *i^Lr+ * 





\ v «Z* 









- V"V 





' • . s 








0 V w ftoS 




It 













I 



r ^ 






WERT II 

BOOKBINDING H 
Gfantv.lte Pa H 
fll May-June 1988 (I 



